Traditionally, the word “trifecta” is used in horse racing when a “better” picks the first three finishers in the correct order. We will circle back to this meaning at the end of this post after we have determined how to pick a winner.
When I use the word trifecta in relationship to holidays, I am talking of Thanksgiving (4th Thursday of November), Christmas (December 25) and New Years Eve (December 31), just over 5 weeks of disrupted living. For those who have a history of mental health issues, trauma, or addiction, this trifecta can be a bet on a win, only if we prepare well and show up with presence.
Holidays typically center around family. But if the mental health, trauma, and addiction issues began there, holidays can trigger PTSD when the old patterns of the family that incited the trauma initially have not changed. Or, if you have decided that it is not healthy for you to be with your family for holidays, or if they are the ones who left, or if your family members have passed away and you are still healing from old wounds, it’s difficult to determine how to make a holiday a winner. It’s difficult but not impossible.
Let’s review old healing and recovery principles if you choose to spend time with family members or if you choose not to be with family over the holidays:
- Self-care. Know your triggers and weaknesses. List them and note past experiences that set them in motion. Prepare yourself with mindfulness and meditation, or prayer.
- Have a plan. How long will you stay? How will you know when it’s time to leave. Make leaving possible (car, bus, uber).
- Call a sponsor, therapist or recovery friend to let them know your plan. Ask if you can check in if things get confusing.
- Show up with your new values. Be there to listen, observe, participate if you can, without judgment and without insisting that anyone follow your plan.
- Show up with presence. If family values focus on presents, how can you give the gift of presence? Can you listen, support, help, serve? Show up in your most resilient recovery.
If you do not spend holidays with family of origin, there is family of choice with whom you can plan your own form of celebrations.
- Connect with your new family who shares your values
- Plan your celebration to honor and reflect those values
- Be brave enough to initiate new traditions and new ways of celebrating the holidays that have been painful in your past
- Throw a “presence” party, rather than giving presents. Invite each guest to share a personal creation: a poem or piece of art, a song or piece of music, or maybe something as simple as the transparent telling of a huge win of the past year.
- Share food – bought or made. Think of your meal as communion, a celebration of being together.
Bets are not certain but the best bets are placed on vetted information and careful planning, like all good recovery. We cannot control the outcome but we can prepare ourselves for better outcomes by going into the trifecta with consciousness and presence in the company of horses that are proven winners.